Getting Aligned on Alignment

Ah alignment. Let he who has never suffered the party disrupting hell that is a Chaotic Neutral Rogue or a Lawful Good Paladin cast the first stone. People playing morally inflexible characters, picking alignments just to provide them the most flexibility in actions, and having to deal with obtuse mechanics like alignment damage and secret alignment languages; all hallmarks of this storied system.

It should come as no surprise that modern fantasy games have decided to tweak this heavily or get rid of it entirely; 5th Edition D&D no longer uses the long standard 9 alignment axis, and Pathfinder 2nd Edition’s recent remaster removed the system entirely and reworked whole classes that relied on it. It turns out trying to put human morality into a simple two word phrase doesn’t really “work” and provides a lot of fuel for needless party conflict. Nobody likes it when the Chaotic Neutral Rogue steals the party’s shit just because he’s “playing to his alignment” or when the Lawful Good Paladin prevents you from stealing the mcguffin you need from the King because “it’s against the law and therefore wrong”.

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And while I generally believe it makes more sense to present character personality as a series of goals and beliefs, I still think alignment can have a place in your game. To give it that though, we need to go back in time a bit before AD&D introduced the classic 9 alignment axis we know and meme today.

A Look to the Past

Before we had that 9 alignment axis, the original and basic iterations of D&D presented us with a much simpler 3 alignment axis. Your character could either be Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic; good and evil simply weren’t considered yet. It seems pretty clear that this system was inspired by the works of Michael Moorcock and his influential Elric of Melnibone stories. These are generally considered the progenitor of stories involving the neverending conflict between the forces of Order and Chaos. However, even in these earlier versions of D&D, they still have a set morality associated with them. Observe the following from the classic Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert sets.

Law (or Lawful) is the belief that everything should follow an order, and that obeying rules is the natural way of life. Lawful creatures will try to tell the truth, obey laws, and care about all living things. Lawful characters always try to keep their promises. They will try to obey laws as long as such laws are fair and just.

If a choice must be made between the benefit of a group or an individual, a Lawful character will usually choose the group. Sometimes individual freedoms must be given up for the good of the group. Lawful characters and monsters often act in predictable ways. Lawful behavior is usually the same as behavior that could be called “good”.

So even though we have this simplified 3 alignment axis, we can still see them essentially being paired alongside good and evil anyway, and providing a description for how characters should behave. So instead of that, let’s turn that on its head a bit and really lean into that cosmic conflict between Law and Chaos.

The Twist

Instead of picking an alignment at character creation, have all characters be Neutral except devout Clerics and Paladins, who should share their alignment with their chosen deity. This alignment should NOT be an indicator of their given morality, but rather what side they are on. In the multiverse, the cosmic conflict between Law and Chaos is neverending, often happening in plain sight, but only those who have truly pledged themselves to the fight can understand what is happening.

As your campaign progresses, provide opportunities for your players to interact with people who are aligned in this war. Offer jobs for both sides, have them witness first hand aspects of the conflict. And finally, begin to give them opportunities to pledge their unending service to Law or Chaos. This should come with benefits (access to information and help from the side they choose) as well as risks (they will now be hunted by the other side). They can also choose to remain neutral if they want and not get involved at all with the conflict!

Why do this though?

In my view, one of the interesting “quriks” of D&D cosmology is the existence of beings of absolute morality. Angels are being of pure Lawful Good from Heaven, Devils are beings of pure Lawful Evil from Hell, etc. Unfortunately this approach doesn’t jive well with the relative morality us humans experience in real life. This approach allows you to represent these aspects of cosmology and integrate them into setting, while also putting players in the drivers seat with regards to their morality and alignment. It’s intended to be a best of both worlds.

But I’d also love to know how you handle alignment in your games and how you feel about this approach!

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